What I’m Learning About Perfection, Guilt and Presence as a Parent
Is the Pressure To Be a Perfect Mother Blinding Us to What Matters Most?
We are all searching for something; our society would have us believe we are constantly missing out on a better life.
As a mother I always have this idea in my mind, this picture of a perfect dinner, a perfect evening with my family, I feel the pressure to create this every night for us, all sitting at the table, everyone eating and no one complaining about the meal or wanting something else instead, somehow the kitchen ends up magically clean and we all bring our empty plates to the bench without me asking over and over…
As if this were all in my control somehow. Funny right?
Was this succeeding? Was this image going to give me that “perfect family” moment?
This is how leftovers changed my perspective and helped me realise not to put so much pressure on myself as a mother.
As parents we are constantly trying to work out how to be in the moment, how to be present with our children.
I always map things out in my head, prepare things as if I’m setting up a play on a stage. I have a vision and I’m trying to make it come to life, to have that perfect family day out, to create perfect family memories. It almost never goes to plan because as we all know the more we try to control our family moments, the further from the “vision” those moments become.
It can be utter chaos and will often end in unmeasurable unhappiness, tantrums from the kids and possibly some tears from mum.
We are all searching for the key to calm, to peace and happiness. As mothers we try to manufacture these things all the time. We organise the chaos of our homes and layout clothes for the next day just to achieve some clarity in the morning, no rifling through baskets of unfolded clothes, no guilt. We try to minimise unnecessary stress for ourselves and for our families.
I find it funny now, how much pressure I always put on myself as a mother, as if I think the children will look back on their childhood and remember the dust on the skirting boards, instead of the laughter in the dining room.
As women we need to be a little bit of everything, a reasonably good cook, a cleaner, gardener, perfect parent, family planner, human calendar, basically all in all we are expected to be super computers, with all of the questions answered and the lost items found, the problems solved, appointments made and the forms signed. No wonder we can’t turn off our internal dialogue, we are constantly switched on, thinking about tasks either performed or whatever is upcoming in the next two minutes.
See I don’t mind this, I’m not complaining. I love being on the go. I enjoy bringing order to my home and I love caring about the little details no one else thinks of, I love laying out the clothes for the next day. My issue is; when am I able to accept my efforts? When can I give myself permission to say, “I’ve done great”.
Why instead am I met with the constant guilt narrative?
This guilt narrative needs to stop. We need to accept ourselves along with the efforts we make. We do a little bit of everything in this life yet still feel the need to do one thousand percent more and not only more, but do it better, prettier, quicker.
It’s like our brains have been trained to constantly search for holes to be filled, jobs to be done and people to be pleased. How dare we sit and watch some tv without feeling the overwhelming tug of “you should be doing something”.
See the other night I did something different I did nothing.
While making my newborn baby a bottle, our family car headlights shone down the driveway, opening doors unleashed my two beautiful daughters in all of their wonderful excitement, they run inside, wanting my comfort and my listening ears, I greeted them both.
With my one free hand, I candidly give them each a bowl of leftovers from the night before. I had not dished up or cooked anything for my partner and myself. He walks into the kitchen and pours us both a glass of wine, I sit feeding the baby and notice the quiet in the house that should be roaring. I throw some music on and naturally my daughters start happily dancing, showing off their moves and laughing together.
I watch this moment, my eldest daughter still holding that bowl of leftovers while she laughs and dances with her sister, who is running back and forth to the table between bites, not one complaint, not a single word was spoken that night about dinner, not about what was in it or how little there was, my partner never held any expectation for dinner for me or him, we just drank our wine and watched that moment, smiling at each other.
How rare to feel content at the end of a day, how vanishing the norm to be in the moment and see what is truly in front of us.
I find my most memorable moments in life were the ones where I never tried, the ones where I sat back with my partner, wine in hand and watched my daughters dance and laugh in the living room.
The moment is not about the meal, it is about the simple joy that comes from being. What are we searching for? Maybe that “better life” is right in front of us and we are just too conditioned to never accept ourselves or our efforts that we make to notice, that we have done it, we have done a great job.
Let’s finally permit ourselves to sit back and enjoy it.
